This
post mentions that sea surface temperatures in some spots close
to Svalbard are far higher than even in the waters closer to the
Atlantic Ocean. In some of these spots, sea surface temperatures are
well over 10°C (50°F).

The
post continues: Where does this heat come from? These hot spots could
be caused by undersea volcanic activity; this is the more dangerous
as this area has seen methane bubbling up from destabilized hydrates
before; the dangers of this situation have been discussed repeatedly,
e.g. in the April 2011 post Runaway
Global Warming.

Indeed,
the big danger is large abrupt release of methane from destabilized
hydrates. At the moment, the amount of methane entering the
atmosphere over the Arctic Ocean is already huge, as illustrated by
the image below that shows high methane readings over the past few
days.

While
we go about our day, working, taking care of our family and doing
life, a crisis that many are unaware of is unfolding in the Arctic
that has been, and will affect, every living thing on Earth,
including us. As recently as of Monday, October 28, 2013,
consistently high levels of methane have been detected through the
methane tracker that the Arctic
News monitors.

Not
only will the Arctic
soon be ice-free,
but something far worse and a symptom of climate
change is happening in real-time: This methane, previously
stored for millions of years in frozen clathrates deep below the
ocean, is starting to be released at a staggering rate in October,
alarming scientists and researchers worldwide.

Most
people joke and think of methane as the thing that comes from cows
and don't understand the seriousness of what unchecked methane
entering the atmosphere will do. Besides accelerating climate change
and making the planet warm even faster, a catastrophic release of
methane has also been thought to be the reason behindpast
mass extinctions.

Throw
in the fact that the oceans
are dying,
and it looks we are indeed watching the unfolding of a major climate
change crisis.

A
recently released short film "Last Hours", drives home the
seriousness of climate change and methane, and why every person on
the planet should be concerned about a catastrophic release of
methane (you can watch the 10 minute video here in this article)

You
may ask yourself, "If
this is such an emergency,
why I am not hearing about this in the mainstream media? Why isn't
this on the nightly news?"

Good
question. You will seldom hear about this in the mainstream media,
because it's something that is so huge, so frightening and so mind
boggling that if people were to wrap their minds around this there
would be a mass uprising and mass panic. So we are left in the dark
about the potential extinction of our species because certain special
interest groups want to continue to profit from the use of fossil
fuels, and certain governing agencies do not want to create mass
panic.

A
quote by Dennis Hayes, founder of Earth Day Network, sums it up:

"The
fossil fuel industry has broken lots of human laws over the last
century. Now the big laws - Nature's laws - are catching up to it. As
Last Hours makes clear, humankind must choose to rein in its carbon
emissions now, or Nature will rein them in for us."

So
by not talking about it or being able to learn about it, our freedom
to make our own decisions has been taken away. We can't address the
problem if we don't know that we have a problem, right?

Thanks
to climate activists like Sam Carana and other members of the Arctic
Methane Emergency Group, we can follow in real time the staggering
amount of methane that is now coming forth from the Arctic at the
Arctic News Blog.

Released
on 10/27/2013 by the USGS (photo above in the slideshow) are the
latest readings of methane over the Arctic area. Methane that is
being released above 1950 pbb (parts per billion) is in red.

To
put those numbers into context, what is considered a "normal"
release of methane? According to Dr. James Hansen, an American
adjunct professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental
Sciences at Columbia University, 1250 ppb is a livable level.

We
are now well surpassing that level daily.

Harold
Hensel, another member of AMEG, has this to say about the recent high
level readings:

"This
is epic! Keep watching the Laptev and East Siberian Sea. This is a
very dangerous place for methane to come up. Huge amounts of methane
hydrates are stored below. They have been frozen there safely for
over 10,000 years. We are witnessing the thawing and large release of
methane from this area for the first time in over 10,000 years. The
fear is that at a critical point there may be a catastrophic sudden
burst of methane from this area. This would more than
likely trigger runaway global warming. We could be
watching the beginnings of this. If the red on the
1750 ppb and the yellow on the 1950 ppb setting on the
methanetracker.org keeps spreading and intensifies, we are watching
it happen.I hope this is an anomaly and these areas
return to little or no activity."

NASA
and scientists around the world are also taking note of the alarming
methane levels:

"ANASA
science team has
observed “amazing and potentially troubling” levels of methane
and CO2 from the rapidly warming Arctic. Given the staggering amount
of carbon trapped in the permafrost — and the fact that methane is
a very potent heat-trapping gas — the space agency is now
asking: “Is
a Sleeping Climate Giant Stirring in the Arctic?”

Scientists
predicted
a decade ago
that Arctic ice loss would shift storm tracks and bring on worse
western droughts of the kind we are now seeing. Recent studies find
that Arctic sea ice loss may well usher changes in the jet stream
that lead to more U.S. extreme weather events (see here
and here).

Several
studies also suggest that in Arctic sea ice loss is driving more
extreme weather in other parts of the world (see review here).

Now
a new
study
in Environmental Research Letters, “Influence of Arctic sea ice on
European summer precipitation” finds a “a causal link between
observed sea ice anomalies, large-scale atmospheric circulation and
increased summer rainfall over northern Europe.” The University of
Exeter news
release
explains:

A
new study offers an explanation for the extraordinary run of wet
summers experienced by Britain and northwest Europe between 2007 and
2012. The study found that loss of Arctic sea ice shifts the jet
stream further south than normal resulting in increased rain during
the summer in northwest Europe.

Dr
James Screen “used a computer model to investigate how the dramatic
retreat of Arctic sea ice influences the European summer climate”
and “found that the pattern of rainfall predicted by the model
closely resembles the rainfall pattern of recent summers.”

Here
is Dr. Screen explaining his findings:

Jet
streams are currents of strong winds high in the atmosphere –
around the height at which aeroplanes fly. These winds steer weather
systems and their rain. Normally in summer the jet stream lies
between Scotland and Iceland and weather systems pass north of
Britain. When the jet stream shifts south in summer, it brings
unseasonable wet weather to Britain and northwest Europe causing
havoc for tourism and farming.

The
model suggests that while summer rainfall increases in northwest
Europe,
Mediterranean regions will receive less rain.

That
final point is significant. It’s increasingly clear the climate
models that had been predicting the countries surrounding the
Mediterranean would start to dry out were correct (see “NOAA:
Human-Caused Climate Change Already
a Major Factor in More Frequent Mediterranean Droughts”).

Have
you ever spent a relaxing afternoon at a local park watching as kid
after kid joyfully files down a playground slide? And every now and
then there's that one wise aleck who refuses to get off the end of
the slide and causes a congestion of children to pile up behind him.
Well, imagine that scene but replace the kids on the slide with
gigantic ice sheets on top of a warm river current and you get an
idea of what's happening at the farthest reaches of Antarctica, in a
region called the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.

This
titanic ice shelf is slowly melting into the Amundsen Sea, which is
an arm of the Southern Ocean and connected to the global ocean
system, similar to the chain of children going down the slide. Right
now the West Antarctic Ice Sheet contributes only a few centimeters
per year to global sea levels. But the shelf has enough freshwater to
raise global sea levels by several feet. That additional fresh water,
though minute, would spread across the world in a matter of days.

The
problem with increasing sea level rise is that most of humanity is
crusted around the coastlines, particularly in low-lying areas. Even
a small fraction of the added water coming from the West Antarctic
Ice Sheet can threaten people along the coasts because it could make
storm surges more severe.

But
barricading the West Antarctic Ice Sheet from sliding into the ocean
is a large glacier called Pine Island Glacier. The 31-mile-long
stretch of ice is akin to the child sitting at the base of the slide
in our playground analogy. But unlike the kid who won't budge, the
Pine Island Glacier is succumbing to the warming waters beneath it
and the heavy pressure of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet behind it.
It's melting, but scientists just don't know how fast.

Now,
after a two-month trip to the remote region, some 810 miles away from
the nearest research station in Antarctica, an international team of
scientists has found just how fast the glacier is liquefying and
slipping into the Amundsen Sea.

Their
research, which was published Sept. 12 in the journal Science,
revealed that Pine Island Glacier is melting at a ferocious rate of
2.4 inches per day.

The
findings surprised Tim Stanton, the expedition's team leader and a
researcher from the Naval Postgraduate School. He said that not only
was the rate much faster than he thought it would be, but that it was
also hundreds of times faster than the ice melting in the Artic.

His
team drilled through 1,640 feet of ice -- about five and a half
football fields' worth -- into the glacier to uncover the melting
rate. At those depths the team used its instruments to decode
features of the current flowing beneath the ice, such as its
temperature, salinity, and how quickly it was eating away the ice.

The
scientists analyzed the physics behind how the underground river as
it whisked away parts of Pine Island Glacier into the Amundsen Sea,
adding to sea level rise.

Now
that they've uncovered how fast Pine Glacier Island is melting, the
team plans to make predictive models to simulate what would happen if
it continues to melt at this rate, or if it were to melt at increased
rates. Stanton said that his measurements are a small part of the
puzzle of understanding the physics behind how glaciers melt
globally.

"We
have one planet and we can't run the experiment as a physical
experiment," he said. "It would be more satisfying to use
our big brains and our big computers to give us predictability."
He said that in the long run the goal is to have models skillful
enough to predict changes in the ocean depending on current glacier
melt rates.

The
intensive melting under the Pine Island ice shelf could cause the
glacier to break off from the rest of the ice shelf, according to a
statement by David Holland, mathematics professor at the Center for
Atmosphere Ocean Science at New York University who contributed to
analyzing the data from the trip in order to create predictive
models.

"That's
important, as this ice shelf is currently holding back inland ice,
and without that restraining force, the Pine Island catchment basin
could further contribute to global sea-level rise," he said in
the statement.

If
that were to happen, it would be like the kid unplugging himself from
the slide and releasing an avalanche of children into the ground
below. But instead of ending up with bruises and scrapped knees, we
get increased sea levels.

If
hundreds of tons of radioactive waste were being pumped into our
oceans daily — so much so that it began to affect our food sources
and increase our rates of mortality — then they would tell us,
right? Apparently not. Who “they” is I cannot say, but they
obviously have a reason for not telling the people that the food that
they are eating could kill them.

Fukushima
Daiichi Nuclear Plant was hit by the earthquake and tsunami of March
2011. Since then, it is estimated that 330 tons of
radiation-contaminated water has been leaking into the Pacific Ocean
daily. That’s correct, over 300 tons of radiation-contaminated
water has been seeping into our oceans every single day for over 2
years. That’s over 250,000 tons of contaminated water that has now
entered the Pacific Ocean. The water itself was used to cool the
nuclear plant.

I’m
no expert on radioactivity, but from what I do know, it spreads
quickly and easily. Putting such a large amount of radioactive water
into our oceans will surely contaminate the rest of the ocean. I am
not one to freak out or look for cause to panic, but it seems that
the time to panic may be upon us.

You
see, it would be one thing if I were telling you that 330 tons of
radiation-contaminated water a day was once upon a time being dumped
into the Pacific Ocean. What I am telling you is that this is ongoing
— that it is happening right now. And that no one has a solution to
stop it. Harvey Wasserman, a journalist and advocate for renewable
energy, told RT:

“The
Japanese authorities have been covering up the true depth of the
disaster because they don’t want to embarrass themselves and the
global nuclear industry and they are trying to open up another
nuclear plant in Japan. When the Japanese people now find out that
the accident is worse than we thought and they have been leaking many
tons of radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean for almost two and a
half years, this is a catastrophe.
Tokyo
Electric has no idea how to control this accident. This is absolutely
terrifying after two and a half years. To find out that these
reactors have been out of control, now that they can’t control this
they don’t know what’s going on. This is not a primitive backward
country; this is Japan with advanced technology.
It
has very serious implications for nuclear power all over the
world…they don’t know what to do. This has never happened before.
You have three explosions; you have four nuclear reactors that are
severely compromised. No one ever planned for this. This is an
apocalyptic event. This is something that could contaminate the
entire Pacific Ocean. It is extremely serious.
The
reality is that Tokyo Electric does not know what is happening and
does not know how to control what is going on. Our entire planet is
at risk here. This is two and a half years after these explosions and
they are still in the dark. It’s terrifying.”

This
should scare you. It sure as hell scares the sh*t out of me. But let
me give you some numbers on how exactly it is already affecting the
American population. Radiation levels have begun to increase in our
food and water supply. Babies are being born with thyroid issues that
are directly linked to radiation. The U.S. and Canada are now raising
the legally acceptable levels of certain toxic substances that are
being imported from Japan.

According
to World Truth TV, samples of milk taken across the United States are
showing radiation levels 2000 percent higher than EPA maximums.

Natural
News explain that, “Cows consume grass and are exposed to the same
elements as food crops and water supplies. In other words, when cows’
milk starts testing positive for high levels of radioactive elements,
this is indicative of radioactive contamination of the entire food
supply.” The FDA has responded by raising the “acceptable levels”
of radioactive material in foods.

Here
is a list of foods that it is now recommended that you stay clear of:

“1.)
SEAFOOD: Question the origin of ALL seafood. Fish and crustaceans
from the Pacific Ocean should all be considered to be poisoned with
radiation.

2.)
WATER: The rainfall and snowfall are all radiated. Do not drink any
water that has not been filtered. The tap water that flows from your
faucet has NOT been treated to rid it of radioactive particles. A
recent report from the NY Times stated, “A rooftop water monitoring
program managed by UC Berkeley’s Department of Nuclear Engineering
detected substantial spikes in rain-borne iodine-131 during
torrential downpours …

3.)
DAIRY PRODUCTS: Milk and milk products from the West Coast states
currently have the highest levels of radiation in North America.

4.)
PRODUCE: Leafy Vegetables, Wines, Tomatoes, Strawberries….all
produced from California or any other West Coast State are also
likely to be tainted.

5.)
MEAT: If an animal eats any leafy vegetable all along the West Coast,
that animal has consumed radiation, and is poisoned. This is any
animal from cows, pigs, goats, sheep to wild deer and other game.”

Infant
mortality has increased by over 35% following the nuclear disaster at
Fukushima — according to a court statement by Dr. Sherman with
independent scientist Lauren Moret, MA, PhD. A recent study published
in The International Journal of Medicine claims that about 20,000
deaths in the United States can be directly linked to the radiation
pouring out for the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant.

This
past Wednesday, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe ordered increased
efforts to stop the leak. Tepco (Tokyo Electric Power) has admitted
that they do not have a handle on things and are in need of dire
help. “Rather than relying on (plant operator) Tokyo Electric, the
government will take measures. This is an urgent matter that needs to
be addressed.”

That’s
correct. This is an urgent matter. This was an urgent matter two and
a half years ago when the leaking first started. Now…now it’s too
late. The world and the entire human race will be greatly affected —
and no one is saying anything! This is being kept hush-hush by all
parties. Tepco kept things quiet for over two years. Our government
hasn’t addressed the topic whatsoever.

But
who can blame it? What’s the point of sparking a huge unrest in our
country and the rest of the world if there is nothing that can be
done about it? How can the government allow the world to boycott
Californian produce when our economy is in such a bad state?
Obviously, money and keeping face are more important than the lives
and wellbeing of millions.

“They
can’t face the reality of this situation. When have very serious
quantities of radiation going into the Pacific Ocean. There is no
medical or epidemiological or scientific basis for estimating how
much damage this will cost. We are on entirely new ground here and
this cannot go by without a serious impact on the entire human race.
This is a terrible tragedy,” says Harvey Wasserman.”
“The
problem is that the company does not want to admit how serious this
is and the government of Japan doesn’t want to admit how serious
this is. And even if the government of Japan steps in, they don’t
know what to do. This particular administration in Japan wants to
open the other nuclear plants. 50 nuclear plants have been shut in
Japan since the accident and they want to reopen them.
This
is very political, because if they admit to how bad the things are in
Fukushima the public is not going to stand for them re opening other
nuclear plants, including some that are owned by Tokyo Electric
Power. How do you have a huge utility company on one hand saying that
we can’t control all these 300 tons of radioactive liquid going
into the Pacific Ocean every day, and on the other hand we want you
to let us open these other nuclear reactors? This is a catastrophe
for them and that’s why they have been lying about it because they
want to open other nuclear plants but they don’t want the public to
know how serious the damage is in Fukushima… it will never be
cleaned up.
We
have materials there that are radioactive, that are harmful, and that
are dangerous for hundreds of thousands of years. They can talk about
cleaning it up in 40 years but it will never be cleaned up. You will
never be able to go back on that site. The radioactivity will be in
the waters forever… There are serious health impacts. People will
be harmed.
We
are seeing 40% rate of thyroid damage among children in the area and
this is a huge impact and it will go up, not down. More and more
radiation is escaping from the water and tritium into the atmosphere.
And radiation to the thyroid is very serious, especially among small
children and we are already seeing a 40% rate. People will be
suffering for hundreds of years. I interviewed people in central
Pennsylvania a year after the accident and discovered tremendous
health impacts among the people there. We know that Chernobyl did
tremendous damage to people in Belarus and Ukraine and now we are
going to see it again in Fukushima.”

Physician
Akira Sugenoya, mayor of the city of Matsumoto interviewed by VoR,
Oct. 30, 2013: “Immediately following the accident at the Fukushima
nuclear power plant, I started saying that children should not be
allowed to live on the contaminated territory [it] weakens children’s
immune system and severely harms their health [...] Children are a
lot more vulnerable to radiation than adults. [...] I want to repeat
once again that children should be relocated to clean, radiation-free
areas at least temporarily. [...] is it feasible to quickly and
effectively do away with radioactive pollution? I am absolutely
certain that it is unfeasible. [...] Compared to Chernobyl, the
situation in Japan is further aggravated by radioactive water
leakages. The world has never ever come across this kind of
situation. [...] We should admit that radioactive water is a grave
problem. The threat that children may have been contaminated with
radioactive materials still looms large. We shouldn’t remain
indifferent to the challenges we are facing.”

Hiroko
Goto, Professor at Chiba University School of Law & Vice
President of Human Rights Now,
Published June 29, 2013 (At
10:00 in):
The second one is very problematic — New residential support plan
for evacuees from outside Fukushima — this mainly focuses on the
pregnant women and the children. If the pregnant women or children
decide to go back to Fukushima, Fukushima Prefecture will offer a
new, very good house without payment. And this kind of policy they
introduce means that the local government wants the people back to
their area. So this is a very not good situation for the women’s
and children’s health.

Warning
from Japan’s Top Nuclear Official: I am “much more worried”
about fuel in Fukushima Unit 4

Associated
Press,
Oct. 30, 2013: Japanese regulators on Wednesday gave final
approval for the removal of fuel rods [to] start in November [...]
About 200 of the rods that are unused and safer are expected to be
the first [...] Nuclear regulatory chairman Shunichi Tanaka, however,
warned that removing the fuel rods from Unit 4 would be difficult
because of the risk posed by debris that fell into the pool during
the explosions. “It’s a totally different operation than removing
normal fuel rods from a spent fuel pool,” Tanaka said at a regular
news conference. “They need to be handled extremely carefully and
closely monitored. You should never rush or force them out, or they
may break.” He said it would be a disaster if fuel rods are pulled
forcibly and are damaged or break open when dropped from the pool,
located about 30 meters (100 feet) above ground, releasing highly
radioactive material. “I’m much more worried about this than
contaminated water,” Tanaka said. [...]

Channel
4 (UK),
Oct. 15, 2013: The worst case scenario is if the fuel assemblies are
dropped, which could ultimately lead to a partial meltdown [...]

VoA
News,
Oct. 15, 2013: That hydrogen explosion [...] left the inside of the
pool littered with debris. [...] TEPCO’s first task is to remove
the debris. [...] The fuel rods must be kept submerged and must
not touch each other or break. Nuclear experts warn any mishaps could
cause an explosion many times worse than in March 2011.

NHK
WORLD,
Oct 30, 2013: [...] The firm hopes to begin the removal at the
facility’s Number 4 reactor on November 8th. Tokyo Electric plans
to check whether the rods are damaged by debris that fell into the
pool in March 2011, and to ensure that they do not get caught in the
debris during the removal process. [...]

Ministry
of the Environment, Government of Japan:
The “Act on Special Measures Concerning the Handling of Radioactive
Pollution” was enacted in August 2011, in response to the
unprecedented situation of radioactive pollution after the accident
at TEPCO’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station. [...] a new
policy framework for the off-site decontamination has been arranged
[...] There are two categories of contaminated areas under the Act.
The first one is the “Special Decontamination Area”, where
decontamination is implemented by the national government. It
includes 11 municipalities in Fukushima Prefecture. The second one is
the “Intensive Contamination Survey Area”, where decontamination
is implemented by each municipality with financial and technical
supports by the national government. [...]

Mainichi,
Sept. 24, 2013: Municipalities
criticize gov’t agency for limiting Fukushima disaster aid
[...] At least 13 municipalities in Chiba, Ibaraki and Tochigi
prefectures have sent critical comments to the Reconstruction Agency
for its basic policy to limit the scope of assistance to only areas
in Fukushima Prefecture [...] Those municipalities are: Noda, Kashiwa
[~10 miles from downtown Tokyo], Kamagaya [~10 mi], Matsudo [~5 mi],
Shiroi [~10 mi], Nagareyama [~5 mi], Sakura [~20 mi], Abiko [~10 mi]
and Inzai [~20 mi] in Chiba Prefecture; Toride [~15 mi], Moriya [~15
mi], and Joso [~20 mi] in Ibaraki Prefecture; and Nasushiobara in
Tochigi Prefecture. [...] The central government sets the maximum
permissible amount of radiation exposure per year for the general
public at 1 millisievert (0.23 microsieverts per hour). The
government designated those areas (municipalities) that were exposed
to radiation exceeding the permissible limit as “Intensive
Contamination Survey Areas,” and has since been providing
assistance to them. Currently, 100 municipalities in eight
prefectures are designated as “Intensive Contamination Survey
Areas,” and the 13 municipalities are among them. [...] all of the
13 municipal governments called for attaching importance to health
assistance for children and pregnant women. They are critical of the
government for applying “double standards” with the
decontamination law and the nuclear disaster aid law. [...]

World
Nuclear News,
Sept. 18, 2013 (Emphasis
Added):
[...] In the
Intensive Contamination Areas,
decontamination work is being implemented based on plans developed at
the municipal level, with some municipalities setting targets of five
years to complete the work and others choosing a timescale of two to
three years. [...]

Tokyo
Mother: “Total media blackout” in Japan of lots and lots of
people developing symptoms related to Fukushima disaster —

“Many
cases of sickness and death among young generations” not reported

World
Network For Saving Children From Radiation,
Oct. 26, 2013: [...] A case like this is just a tip of iceburg [...]
IKKO is a Buddhist monk. His life is ending. He is only 34 years old
and lives in Hiwada town [near Koriyama] in Fukushima. He had a heart
attack two days ago, and his doctor announced brain death. He is now
connected to life-support. My sister in Fukushima knows him through
her student [...] She and IKKO got engaged and were planning to get
married next year. She has just lost her father from cancer last
April. He had worked at Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant [...] My sister
was present when IKKO had a heartattack and is in disbelief of what
is taking place since he was fine before this [...] There have been
many cases of sickness and death among young generations in Fukushima
although it is not reported by media.

Mother
from Tokyo, Japan during Q & A at Cinema Forum Fukushima,
Published July 3, 2013 (at
2:20 in):
In Japan, it’s really a total blackout of media, even though there
are lots and lots of people who have been developing symptoms. That
information itself cannot come out because of the control of the
media and the doctors, like the Society of Medicine in Japan, are
denying even now that there have been health damages [...] I just
wanted to remind you that this is really a real thing. It’s not
only the anxiety, it is happening. I think this is the most important
thing. But there are very few people who talk about this […] I was
outside on the 15th of March in Tokyo, and then about 1 month later,
I had fever of like 103ºF for 8 days. And this [baby] boy, he was
totally healthy, now he’s OK, but at the time he had 101ºF fever
on and off for 13 times in the duration of 3 months. He had rash all
over and he was really, really sick [...] he became real skinny and
he stopped growing for 3 or 4 months. It is really happening. I have
2 nodules in my thyroid, and my boy has countless number of minor
nodules. So what I wanted to stress most, the most important thing is
the symptoms are happening. I want you to know, and I want you to
spread this information.

A
great compilation of info for those who are new to Fukushima Nuclear
Meltdown (and/or a quick synopsis) and the probable catastrophic
outcome. More date to follow. However, this is a great intro for
those who know nothing about the damage to the nuclear plant, the
radioactive fallout coming across the pacific. I suppose you could
call this "class" of information sharing: Getting to know
you radioactive fallout (sorry I showed up tardy to class). Teacher
then informs student: sit down and listen....